Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My baby Collared has been very lethargic lately. He looks super skinny compared to other lizards and he never wants to wake up and play anymore. I am getting really worried. For the last two days he hasn't eaten his two crickets either. He just lets them bounce around and die. Any ideas on whats wrong. He doesn't look like he's going to shed, I have other amphibians (two chubby painted frog's and a red eared slider turtle) and Reptile (red tailed Boa) in the house and they are not ill. We've been taking him out of his cage to try and get a reaction, he's jump once then just cuddle down into us and go back to sleep. Any idea's on whats wrong? He's currently housed in a 10 gallon, with cal-sand, a wooden hide box, rock. He has a underground heater along with his heat lamp (UV/and blacklite bulbs) 86-88 degrees currently but usually 95 , never over 110 though. His cool sides usally 88 some times cooler at night.

Hi, first thing I would do is get his temps up in tank. Collareds like it hot, 100- 105 basking and 90- 95 everywhere else in tank. So your temps are not where they should be for a little guy. See if that makes a difference in his eating, and activity level, should right away providing he is not sick. I dont know how old or big he is, but a 10 gallon tank is too small, unless its a hatchling. Should have at the minuimum a 20 for one collared. Other thing I would check for is worms, dont know where you got your little collared, cb or wc, but they do lose weight and get letharic when they have worms. And make sure he gets plenty of water also. Either in a shallow saucer, OR a paper cup with a tiny hole in bottom sitting on top of screen lid and slowly dripping down onto a rock where he can lick water drops.
I hope he will be fine real soon. Adjust temps first, I think it should help. Let us know how he makes out, Good Luck, have a good day ! Eve

What you were saying about the black light but get rid of it and just use a regular basking bulb, or even a 100 watt light bulb will work. Monitor your temps until you get them to the 100- 105 basking area and the 90- 95 everywhere else as I said in last post. You can turn of heat at night, it is not nessesary. I also do not use any underground heat either on any of my collared tanks, never have. Others may want to add something for or against that. Hope that little one, jumps around real soon, Eve

His cage is in the proper temp range, Saebbe looked at the readings when I just put him back, and the light wasn't even over the cage so it cooled down considerably, and didn't have ample time to warm back up before she looked at the temps. I even think the temp might even be a bit too high, the thermometer only goes to 95 so if it's higher than that I cant tell. (that'll be fixed soon, going to be getting a tempgun very soon) And when she said black light she meant a UV light, both lights we use are approved retile heat blubs...

Just wanted to clarify a couple things, we aren't really Retile newbies, just confused about our poor Seymore...

~W

I think that it is very important that you get him to drink. Try to put a drop of water on the nose/mouth. If he needs water he will most likely begin to drink. If he drinks then try to mix some vitamins in the water.
I had one hatchling that was like yours for the first 2 weeks of his life. He drank every day, but did not eat until after 2 weeks.
Jesper